The United States Postal Service is a Governmental Corporation which competes with privates corporations, such as Federal Express and United Parcel Service. Its future growth and prosperity will depend to a large extent on how effectively it competes.
Each of the mail delivery services emphasizes how fast and efficiently they can deliver mail. The United States Postal Service, however, must deliver a mix of mail which the other services do not have to cope with, including first class letters, and second and third class materials such as magazines, advertising flyers, and the like.
In order to insure efficient performance, the materials to be delivered by the United States Postal Service are first sorted into case in which letters and "flats" are separately located; thereafter, the letter carrier will pull the letters and flats to be delivered for his particular customers and place them into a tray. "Flats" include magazines, advertising brochures, catalogs, newspapers, and the like.
Much of the mail delivered by the United States Postal Service is delivered by a letter carrier sitting in a "long lived vehicle" ("LLV") which is configured so that the letter carrier can drive up to a mail box, open it up, and insert the mail for the particular addressee into the mailbox.
The average letter carrier delivering mail in an LLV vehicle has at least about 500 addresses to deliver to. Although the letter carriers work an eight hour day, not all of their time is available for delivering the mail. After spending time in the morning sorting mail, and spending time in the afternoon on various administrative matters, no more than about 6 hours is available for actually delivering mail. Deducting about thirty minutes for the mail carrier's lunch, and another twenty minutes for breaks, no more than about 310 minutes is available for actually delivering in an LLV.
The minutes actually available for delivering mail in the LLV amounts to about 37 seconds per address. However, many of the addresses to which mail is to be delivered require substantially more than 37 seconds for mail delivery. Thus, for example, when mail for which the addressee's signature is required (such as registered mail) is to be delivered, the letter carrier must dismount from the LLV, walk to the residence of and find the addressee, and secure his or her signature. Thus, some of the addressee's (such as businesses) do not have mailboxes to which the letter carrier can drive up to in an LLV.
In practice, unless the letter carrier is able to deliver mail to the mailboxes in an average time of no more than about eighteen seconds, he will not finish his mail route on time. When the weather is bad, as it often is in applicant's home town of Hamburg, New York, it frequently becomes difficult to meet this eighteen second delivery goal.
A savings of as little as 3.6 seconds per delivery on an LLV route would be substantial and would save about 30 minutes per day for the letter carrier.
It is an object of this invention to provide a device for containing mail which will substantially reduce the time needed for a letter carrier in an LLV vehicle to deliver mail.
It is another object of this invention to provide an apparatus for holding mail which is sturdy.
It is yet another object of this invention to provide an apparatus for holding mail which be removably attached to a four-sided letter tray.
It is yet another object of this invention to provide an apparatus for holding mail which, when attached to a four sided letter tray, will hold the mail in a manner so that it does not fall out of the tray.
It is yet another object of this invention to provide an apparatus for holding mail which contains at least two shelves.
It is yet another object of this invention to provide an apparatus for holding mail which contains a three sided shelf with at least one wall whose height can be adjusted.